Numbers 26:1, commentary and pictures

After the plague that followed the sin with the Midianite women, the Lord told Moses and Eleazar the priest to take a new numbering of Israel. It was the second census, taken in the plains of Moab just before entering Canaan near the close of the forty years of wandering, nearly forty years after the first numbering soon after leaving Egypt at Sinai. The numbering answers the first numbering and is to be compared with it to see how each tribe gained or lost during the wilderness journey. It makes manifest that God fulfilled His threatened judgment upon that wicked and rebellious generation, so that not one man numbered the first time remained alive except Caleb and Joshua. The whole number of adult males was little changed, 601,730 for 603,550, though the tribes changed considerably, with Simeon shrinking almost two-thirds from 59,300 to 22,200 in fulfillment of Jacob's blessing that Simeon should be divided and scattered, while Manasseh grew almost two-thirds from 32,200 to 52,700.

Setting and Second Census

After the plague that followed the sin in chapter 25 involving the Midianite women, the Lord directed Moses and Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest to undertake a new numbering. The numbering is the second census of Israel, taken near the end and close of the forty years of wandering in the plains of Moab just before entering Canaan. It came nearly forty years after the first numbering soon after leaving Egypt and at Sinai, reckoned as forty years earlier by one reckoning and as thirty-eight years later by another. The thirty-six chapters of Numbers nearly cover the thirty-eight years between the two enumerations.

The verse belongs to Numbers 25 to 29, which stands outside the portion in Numbers 9 through 24 covering the ceremonies, service, wanderings and murmurings of Israel, the strict order God placed among them, and Balak hiring Balaam to curse Israel. It stands together with various laws and ordinances containing valuable instruction as part of diversified reading. The second numbering answers the first numbering in chapter 1 and is to be compared with it by noting the difference in the tribes. By that comparison is seen how some decreased and others increased and how each tribe gained or lost in number during the wilderness journey.

Fulfilled Judgment and Warning

The second numbering makes manifest that God had fulfilled His threatened judgment against wickedness and open, wanton rebellion against Himself, for which He by solemn oath had excluded that generation from the land and doomed them to die in the wilderness. By the time the Lord directed the new numbering after the plague, all who had rebelled and been numbered the first time had died in the wilderness, so that not one man numbered the first time was alive except Caleb and Joshua, and not one rebel remained alive.

The numbering found 601,730 adult males in all, little changed from 603,550 at the first numbering, though the tribes changed considerably. Simeon shrank almost two-thirds, from 59,300 to 22,200, in fulfillment of Jacob's dying blessing that Simeon and Levi would be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel, as Levi was given no tribal division of the promised land but was scattered among the tribes for priestly duties. Manasseh, by contrast, grew almost two-thirds, from 32,200 to 52,700. The census Moses took at the Lord's command was not sinful, unlike David's later numbering of the people without the Lord's consent.

The fact that God fulfills threatened judgments instructs those upon whom the ends of the world are come, whose hopes of entering the kingdom of God and whose tokens of God's favor, presence, and willingness to save cannot be greater than Israel's at the first numbering, that Israel still came short of the promised land. Sin carried in the heart will inevitably bring ruin.